By the time I was thirteen I had a new job at Second Branch: Piloting. Not long after my thirteenth birthday, I was taken by my father to a new, underground facility on the outskirts of NERV-2, one that contained several secret laboratories as well as a training center and what would eventually be the home cages of the Evangelions themselves.
My EVA was still not ready by then, so I was started on a simulator and my training begun on how to operate the EVA unit. Back then the A10 neural interfaces were still being worked on, and there wasn't even LCL to use in the simulated entry plug. The piloting simulation basically played out like a giant-sized video game, where I would dress up in something like a plug suit and then operate the EVA by using voice commands. It was primitive but designed to get me used to piloting as early as possible.
Over time the simulator improved: voice commands were replaced by actually functioning nerve impulses, which mean I was learning how to control EVA with my mind and body. Then LCL was introduced into the entry plug and after a few scary moments of learning how to breathe something that was liquid I got used to working with the entry plug fully enclosed. The simulator missions themselves became more and more complex, and by the time I was actually able to activate the real Evangelion I had run through the simulator dozens if not hundreds of times. Despite all of that, it still didn't feel nearly the same as when I was in an actual entry plug, piloting an actual Evangelion.
Unfortunately even though I had managed to finally activate Unit 04 the engineers at Second Branch were still fiddling with it, so I was again told to go train on the simulator until it was ready. On that particular day I spent most of the night running missions on the EVA simulator. Nearly all of the training missions consisted of either what we'd call Defense, which was my unit defending Second branch against an attack by other units, or Offense, which was the reverse where I would attack another base that was defended by other EVAs instead. Of course, we didn't call the enemy "EVA" we'd call them Angels instead, but basically all I ever did in simulator up until now was just fight other EVA units.
By the time I got to where I was able to activate the real EVA, I was pretty good at the simulator and able clear through any game it ran on my own. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't running the simulator by myself any more.
"Hey, get the hell out of my way," came Vance's voice on the speakers. "You're in my line of fire."
It's only been a minute into the current game and he's already getting on my nerves. "He's my target, dumbass!"
"Screw that," he muttered and then within the simulated environment suddenly leaped his EVA straight over mine and ran towards our target: a purple-colored EVA that was a few hundred yards in front. I watched as the black and silver-colored EVA-03, Vance's own unit, quickly took its progressive knife and started stabbing at the purple enemy. Vance completely blocked my own firing line between my EVA and the enemy with his own unit, and kept me from knocking down the target. Really irritated with his gameplay, I decided to just remind him a little. Taking the pallet rifle in my own EVA's hands, I fired a three-round burst directly into Unit 03 from behind.
"Hey!" Vance screamed out lout, "I'm working here!"
I wasn't having any of it. "Told you you're in my way," I said in a sneer.
Despite my own friendly fire Vance still managed to make pretty short order of the enemy EVA with his knife and had it down and deactivated within a few more seconds. Then within the computer-generated environment another EVA, this one colored yellow, appeared and started firing at him. Unit 03 dove for cover while I directed my own rifle at the EVA and started shooting at it. I got a few hits but it also hit me a few times, and in this simulation AT fields didn't count so I was damaged before I could do anything else. I rolled over to a building for cover while Unit 03 peered out from another building across an intersection from me and started shooting at the yellow EVA. It took us a minute or more to subdue it, each of us firing from our own positions of cover while the target darted around and took shots at us both.
Finally Vance gave the unit the killing shot, coming up close under a barrage from his own weapons and then using his pallet rifle like a club to knock the enemy down. As nasty as he was, I did have to admit to myself the new boy fought rather well. However he was also the most selfish game hog I'd ever seen.
"Got 'em!" he called out as he pumped a few rounds into the now prone EVA from his gun. A graphic message came on stating SIMULATION COMPLETE and then the display inside of my simulated entry plug switched over to test mode. The LCL came draining out and after spitting whatever was left in my lungs, always an unpleasant thing, I got out of my throne and went for the door.
Even though we got a win over the computer, I was not happy at all with what happened, as Vance had basically killed all of the targets by himself and mostly in ways that kept me from fighting at all. He had six kills to my zero that game, and despite our team winning I had never gotten a flat Zero in any game except my first, disastrous try nine months earlier. I marched over from my simulated plug to the plug next to mine, and waited at the hatch until Vance got himself out.
Dressed in a black plug suit with red piping, Vance Vinson cut a tall and imposing figure for someone who was just fourteen. Not that it mattered. This was my game and he had just muscled his way in without any regard to what we were actually doing. As he got out of the hatch I immediately started in on him. "What the hell was that?!"
He seemed genuinely surprised I was even made. "What's your problem, girlie?"
I nearly hit him. "Don't call me girlie!"
"Okay, chickster."
"And don't call me 'chickster' either! I can fully kick your ass if I wanted to." Vance was not remotely impressed, folding his arms and sneering down on me. "Really? Oh, I'd love to see you try that."
I attempted to stay focused on what had just happened, as at least I was taking it seriously. "We're supposed to be working as a team, but you took all of my targets!"
"Funny, I don't remember that being in the rules. I thought the rules were something more like 'kill or be killed.'"
"There are six targets and we get three apiece. We're supposed to split up and take them out one by one." Vance just leaned against the plug with a smug look on his face. "Oh, and like the Angels are just going to play fair like that."
"That's the way the simulator game works," I tried to explain. "You get the top score by…"
"Listen, babe…"
After hearing that I actually got so angry with him that I pounded him as hard as I could with my right arm. "Don't call me babe, jerkhead!" Vance barely flinched at my punch.
"Listen, Miss Forrestal, in a real combat the enemy's not going to neatly present themselves right there in front of you like a game of Space Invaders. Once they pop up, one of us pins them down while the other rushes in for the kill. Given as you were way too slow in pinning them down, I just did the job for us both, which in my book makes it pretty easy for you."
"You were hogging up all of the targets!"
"I did you a favor, honey."
"DON'T' CALL ME HONEY, YOU ASSHOLE!" I didn't let him finished and tried again to give him a punch. Before I could make contact he proceeded to grab my right wrist and hold it tightly, and man was his grip tight! Fortunately for me gymnastics and EVA piloting weren't my only skills, as I swiftly took my left leg and jetted it just below his right one, and then I pulled it, tripping him down and against the side of the plug wall. He still held my wrist even as he went down and pulled me down with him, which suddenly brought me collapsed right on top of him.
For a good twenty seconds there I was laying right on top of this boy with our faces just a few inches from each other. I was shocked to even be in such a compromising position and he still had my wrist in his vice-like grip. My eyes looked directly into his with my own fury at being brought down like this, while he just gave a fox-like grin.
"Sorry, little tiger," he said to me, "I'm only here for the training. We don't have time for anything else." Furious, I wrestled out of his grip and got up from the steel flooring. I managed to get off the floor and was about to give him a kick when I saw that he was holding his head in pain.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked, not thinking that I hit him that hard.
Vance just grimaced and shook his head, and then in about a minute he cleared up a little. He was still on the cage floor, and he looked exhausted. "I, uh, I get these headaches since I came out here," Vance explained. "Must be the heat."
"Must be," I said to him coolly.
I left him there on the floor, still furious about how I was treated. I didn't want him to see how angry I was, how much he had gotten to me. Angry enough to have tears coming out of my eyes. I hated him that much.
The following day I woke up later in the morning, now normal for me as my training with the EVAs was taking place late at night and I often didn't get to bed until midnight or afterwards. As usual Dad wasn't in the apartment when I woke up, but today he left a note like he usually did, this time saying I had neither simulation nor actual unit work today. Also as usual, he wrote a reminder to destroy the note after I read it. After so many years dad was still more than a little paranoid, perhaps even more so now that EVA was active.
I still had some of my usual lessons later that day including gymnastics, so I picked out a sleeveless tank leotard, put on a white pleated skirt and runners to go with it, then out the door I went. Downstairs my dad's driver was already waiting for me.
The driver took me to the base hospital, where I would meet and have lunch with Jo Belknap. My dad didn't do "girls" stuff and when I started to go through puberty all of the help with that was delegated to his staff, in particular the nurses that I was entrusted to. One of them was Jo, who was a middle aged American and unmarried woman who I got along with while dealing with all of those changes that took place in-between being a girl and being a young adult, and we spent enough time together to establish what was my most meaningful relationship at Second Branch besides my dad. From helping me to deal with all of the physical changes I was going through Jo and I hit it off, and if I had a real confidant at NERV-2 it was her more than anyone else.
She met me in the hospital cafeteria, she was wearing a white set of nurses scrubs, her blonde hair tied back behind her. I waived to her and she motioned to what table she was going to sit at. After a few minutes to pick out my lunch, which consisted of a very healthy chicken salad and tomato juice, I took my tray and sat down across from her. Despite the small talk we started with, she sensed my bad mood almost immediately.
"So how's the new pilot?" she asked me, already knowing much about EVA due to her staff position and security clearance that came with it.
I started into her eyes, no longer willing to hide my disgust. "Stupid. I finally get someone else here my own age and he's the worse person possible."
Jo seemed nonchalant about it, resting her chin on her hands and asking me further. "Oh, in what way?"
"He's horrible," I said with strong tones of dislike in my voice. "He's pushy, he's inconsiderate, he calls me these sexist cute names and then act's like he's God's gift to the female race."
"Sounds like a lot of other fourteen year old boys."
"Don't tell me they're all like that?" I asked as I grazed on my salad. It was an honest question.
"Mostly," she said casually. "The ones that aren't are usually too wimpy to put up much of a fight." I sighed in frustration. "Why couldn't I at least get a more decent boy to work with, or even another girl," I pouted. "So much for Prince Charming showing up."
"To be fair when Prince Charming was fourteen he was probably pretty crass, too," I had to laugh at that.
"Don't worry too much about him," she said to me, trying to be encouraging. "Boys put up that kind of front all the time. It's usually so you won't figure out how weak they really are and if they get hurt badly enough they'll go cry for their mommies." I laughed again, thankful that at least someone could put this in perspective.
After lunch I headed for gymnastics. Because EVA was now becoming more and more a part of my life, all of the regular instruction I had since I was six was now being cut back further and further as my need for training with the Evangelion increased. Swimming and tennis were already down to one day a week, Karate was twice a week. Gymnastics was also now only twice a week and I was afraid that even this might be cut further.
My biggest frustration besides being paired with a dipwad for a piloting partner was that now after seven years of doing gymnastics I had yet to enter any single competition. Every year the pleading to my dad would begin with "Dad, please let me compete this year," and every year the answer was some combination of "we'll see," and was always foiled due to the need for my security. I had already lost two coaches since I was ten because of it and my current coach, Mrs. Kutsenova, was just as frustrated at Dad as I was. With EVA now encroaching on the rest of my daily life, I somehow knew that if I was ever going to complete it needed to be soon, as even with my skills there was no way I was ever going to do well in any competition if I only did Gymnastics less than four hours a week. Mrs. Kutensova knew this too and so we worked out a new strategy to get Dad to change his mind: get me the highest score on an event possible. If I could get a perfect 10 or something maybe just shy of it, I might finally convince him to let me go to a meet.
I focused then on balance beam, which was by far my best event, and together my coach and I worked out a routine that if fully successful would wow at any competition. As part of that I would spend the next two hours honing in my routine as much as possible.
That afternoon I did my regular warmup routine and ran a few laps around the gym before I started on my beam routine. This was normal, and like normal the gym was mostly empty except for me, my coach, and her assistant. Occasionally people on the base would stop by and watch, but during the mid- afternoon most were just too busy working to play spectator, especially now that all of Second Branch's focus was on final assembly of the two EVA units we had now.
On this particular day the leotard I wore was my tiger-striped one which was my current favorite and one I wore for good luck that day. Previously I had a collection of something around a hundred leos, then my body went and grew up on me and I had to start a new collection now with roomer space and bras for my "womanhoods." I remember during puberty praying to God not to let me grow up too much and I meant that physically, and at least someone heard me as by age thirteen and three quarters I managed to top out at a nice little five feet zero with tiny feet and hands, and thankfully a slim build at something like ninety pounds. As I nearly always did since I was little I kept my hair cut short in the back, and with bangs in the front, occasionally like today wearing a headband just to keep the sweat out of my eyes.
As I approached the beam I took chalk out of a bin and applied it to my feet, needed to keep the sweat from making my feet too slippery. Unlike many gymnasts I didn't wear beam shoes or anything else on my feet except the occasional ace bandage if my heels got too loose. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard on the routine, mentally going through everything in my head I'd be doing. Breathing hard, I slowly opened my eyes and counted down to when I'd start. 3…2..1…
Go! I ran down the mat at top speed, getting to just within five feet of the end of the runway and then diving towards the floor hands first. Hitting the mounting spring with my hands, I flipped myself over 360 degrees and landed at the end of the beam on my feet, straightening out quickly. Keeping my hands at my sides I took a few steps down the beam and then spread out my arms, and bent lower to go into an arabesque, quietly raising my right leg above me while keeping everything else leaning forward. Slowly I got my leg into a complete 180 and perpendicular to the rest of my body, and then held it for a few seconds, careful to look forward and give my best smile despite the strain of doing this.
I then snapped out of the arabesque and did a forward flip on the beam. That was impressive but not the best part, that came when I dropped down and straddled the beam and then rolled over so that my hands were on the beam while I now slowly rolled myself forward while pushing with my hands, raising my whole body off the beam itself. While lifting up with my hands I pulled my legs into the splits, again being careful to keep them straight and perpendicular to the beam. It was murder doing that, as imagine holding up your entire body weight for thirty seconds while spreading your legs completely out. But I got it done and then rolled back onto the beam and back on my feet.
Just as I positioned to get my dismount set up I unfortunately had a wobble, not big enough to throw me off but big enough to deduct a bunch of points off. I didn't need the coach's yelling at me about it, I already knew it was a big screw up, but like a trooper I just shook it off and then went into my flying dismount: a backwards double-flip that flung me off the beam and back onto the mat. I just wobbled a bit more on the landing and I was down.
To an outsider that all would have looked impressive, but both the coach and I knew it was bad enough to knock me down a lot. She came over to me and both of us reviewed what happened and how I could straighten up a bit more after coming off the handstand with splits. Determined to make this work, I walked to the beginning of the runway to try again.
As before I lined up at the start and closed my eyes, concentrating on the run. This time I didn't do a countdown, but as soon as I felt ready I just started sprinting for the beam.
In I flash I started with my flying handstand and then landed right on the near corner, perfect positioning! I stiffened up, keeping my back straight and poise as perfect as I could, then went into the arabesque like a dancer. That felt good, then I rolled onto the beam and went to the handstand. Concentrating as hard as I could, I pushed myself up and split my legs, and after holding it for as long as I could, I rolled out of it and back on the beam. This time there were no wobbles and I felt elated.
I was just about to start on the back spring until I heard this loud clapping and cheering from the bench that was closest to the mat, loud enough to snap me out of the perfect zone I was in. I turned around to see the source of the disruption and groaned loud enough to hear me on the other side of the gym: It was Vance Vinson. Wearing a black and red track suit, Vance was clapping loudly with his teeth in a grin a mile wide. I wanted to murder him at that moment.
"Wow, sis, you're incredible," he told me as he got up off the bench and walked towards me. My coach started to try to talk to him in order to warn him away then took a second look at the two large men also now inside of the gym in dark suits: they were VIP security and likely under the command of Vance's father Admiral Vinson. She decided not to get involved as the son of the head of base security approached me where I remained standing on the beam.
"I had no idea you were that good," he exclaimed, still clapping. Not that I mind praise but blowing my routine right in the middle was unforgiveable. Despite my anger I tried my best to hold it back. "Would you mind?!" I scowled. "It's bad enough you have to tease me in the units, do you have to do it here too?"
"Jeez, what is your problem, tiger?" he replied to me. "I'm just complimenting you on your super-perfect performance."
"I hadn't finished yet, you dipshit," I shot back, still very angry that my routine had been fouled by something or someone so stupid.
"You know," he said with a grin, "if you really want to win a gold medal you need to be able to do all that even with idiots like me making all this noise. Actual Competitions are too lively compared to this place, this," he motioned to the rest of the gym, "this is like practicing in a graveyard."
"How the hell would you know," I asked him. "I thought this was too girly for you."
"Hey," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "if there's an event with lots of girls wearing nothing but those kind of slinky outfits, I'm there!"
I'm normally not that body conscious. I mean, I've been doing gymnastics for a long time and if you're worried about been seen in a leotard you're not going to be able to do anything meaningful. But suddenly I had really wished I had put on a pair of shorts that day, and found myself blushing as Vance got a much better look at my body then I ever wished he could. It actually made me nervous to see him stand up right next to the beam with that stupid grin of his. So nervous that I wobbled and suddenly realized that I had not put on any more chalk on my feet since my first attempt at my routine. I then did something I almost never do: I slipped off the beam.
I let out a scream as I found myself careening off the side. It's not a huge drop downward, but you could break something when you land even on a gym mat and I was fearful of hurting myself. But I never made it down. I was caught mid-way through my dive. My eyes opened and I suddenly found myself face up in Vance's arms.
It was certainly a vulnerable position I was in and his grip on me was very strong, he held me so tightly that I couldn't budge at first. I was going to yell at him to let go but then I looked at his face. He silently looked down on me, not with a toothy grin or a smirking expression, but I saw something else instead. His brown eyes were somehow warmer, his face softer, and his smile was more gentle. It was a side of him I hadn't seen up until now.
For a few seconds he just held me like that in his arms and I couldn't get any words out at all. My face blushed even brighter red. Finally getting a rational thought out of my head, I asked him. "Would you let me go please?"
He looked at me curiously and I could see how his eyes scanned my whole body. Reflexively my own hands went to between my legs, not wanting him to see so much of me at such a close distance. Finally I snapped out of it. "Vance! Would you mind please?" I said to him, trying as hard as I could to restrain my anger.
"Sure," he said quietly and gently let me down on the mat. I actually was pretty surprised: I'd thought he'd just drop me right then and there. I stood up and pretended to dust myself off, avoiding eye contact with him. He didn't say anything however and just looked at me. Not knowing what else do to or say, and feeling my concentration completely ruined with him in the room I just turned my back to him and walked off towards the other edge of the mat and where my handbag was sitting on a bench. Without looking back at him I opened up my bag and grabbed my skirt, then after I put it on and my shoes I walked straight out the doors. It was the first time in my life I'd ever left the gym without finishing a routine.
After a couple of days the EVAs themselves were ready for another test run and late in the evening I was back in the remote underground range. After again syncing with and activating my unit, both us and Unit 03 were to practice maneuvers inside of the spacious subterranean arena so that we could learn how to move the EVAs and start transitioning away from the simulators.
Even after just a few minutes controlling my Evangelion I could really tell how well she was matched up with me. In the first run we just got to walking, but this time I pushed the limits of what she could do, starting with running and jumping and more simple things. Each time she moved with my own commands and it was nearly instantaneous, piloting the EVA was like wearing a suit practically.
Satisfied that my unit would move when and where I told it with my thoughts, I then tried some more advanced things. Could EVA do a cartwheel? Shockingly she did, completely without a hitch. Flips? She could do that too, and within another few minutes of some trial and error I had Unit 04 doing forward flips like an elite gymnast. Here we were, me piloting a twelve thousand ton robot larger than the old Statue of Liberty and I was getting it to do somersaults like a six year old girl. I became a lot more comfortable piloting EVA after that, as I could see how well my own commands fluidly translated into her movements and actions.
I also began to understand just why dad had put so much investment into my training and schooling. I had always wondered why go to so much expense to train me for gymnastics, hiring the best coaches from the other side of the world and even building a gym just for me, yet not allow me to complete in meets. If my sync rate was high enough, my gymnastics skills could match up with the EVA nearly seamlessly, giving us a big advantage in using these things against enemies. I was being trained to pilot all of these years, I just didn't know it. It gave me just that much more faith in my father to know what the end result of his investment in me was.
Vance was also there, training with EVA-03 and putting it through its paces. Vance so far was able to keep up with me and while he didn't have his unit doing flips he was able to wrestle and maneuver well and was already working out how to come up with "killer moves" against enemies. He didn't bother me much that day, at least not yet.
After two hours of moving around the arena and pushing the EVA and myself to our physical limits we were called back into the cages. I exited my entry plug, elated that I had found something I could uniquely call mine. I walked on the steel gantry towards the pilot lockers when Vance intercepted me on the walkway. I was sort of hopeful I'd see the new Vance today, but unfortunately the old one was back in charge.
"Hey tiger," he said with a grin. "Did you win a gold medal tonight?" Disappointed, I tried to ignore him as I walked down the gantry. "None of your business," I said back to him.
"You know, none of that sissy flipping around is going to kill anything, right?"
"You wouldn't know anything," I replied with a smug face. "I bet I can completely kick your ass in this thing if I wanted to."
"No you can't"
"Wanna bet?" I asked him, turning around and stepping close to him. I foisted my finger on his chest as I made my challenge. "I saw you moving around the training arena and you aren't nearly as good as I am. I bet you can't survive five minutes with me in the area."
"I only need ten seconds to kill you," he coldly replied, something of which I was highly skeptical. "Really?"
He moved closer to me, and it was as we stood close to each other when I realized he was at least a foot taller than I was. "Tell you what, Tiger. You want me to stop teasing you like the little girl that you are?"
"I'm not little."
"Sure you're not, said the midget pixie gymnast." I hit him again after that in the arm. Seeing him back off a little I hit him one more time, as hard as I could. He grabbed my wrist and held me as he spoke. "Listen up, tiger, if you can best me with the EVA I'll give up the verbal abuse."
"Did you want to do combat?" I proposed.
"Nah. What's your highest sync rate?"
"I got 39% today," I told him. He smiled at me. "Mine was 41%, but I'll make this easy for you. Out-sync me and we'll call it even."
"Outsync you?"
"Yeah, and by a lot too. Not like zero-point-one or something. This isn't a gymnastics meet where you get a grade for everything you do. You need to kill me, not just beat me. Deal?"
I looked up at him and narrowed my glance, finally wrestling my wrist away from his grip. "Deal."
The next evening I got my chance to deal with my Vance problem, as I had started to call it. We weren't maneuvering in the EVA like the previous evening but instead running a harmonics test, which is where the Evangelion pilots are fully tested on their ability to sync with their EVAs but without an actual EVA activation. This was the perfect venue for me to hopefully prove myself the better of the two of us.
We boarded the test plugs in the exact same way we'd do a regular entry plug, wearing plug suits and A10 nerve controllers as well. I sat in the plug as both mine and Vance's were then lowered into a giant pool of LCL about half-way deep, then the monitoring test began. My father himself was in the control booth just outside the testing pool.
"Okay, Erin," he coached me, "just let yourself relax and feel out the sync." I tried to do so, not entirely sure what else I could do further to raise my sync rate. I started to run through all sorts of thoughts in my head, thinking about EVA, thinking about stuff I liked, thinking about anything good like pretty flowers or the sunset or a good romance book. Sometimes thoughts of Vance would pop in my head, especially about the earlier time he caught me falling off the balance beam. I pushed that aside, not wanting anything unpleasant.
Someone else got into me, and I began to recall that dream I had when I first synced, the one with the boy's face. I still wasn't really sure what that was, but I sort of focused on it in my mind. Eyes just like mine, I thought. Maybe I really just wanted out of here and to go somewhere far away, where there was cool mountain weather. It actually felt kind of relaxing to think about it, and was certainly better than thinking about my current home of hot, dry desert held back by a city full of air conditioning: the home I could never seem to leave.
I let my mind go and thought about that cabin in my dreams and whoever it was I was seeing inside of it, and nearly fell asleep in the entry plug. Then there was some other sensation, something I couldn't quite grasp. Like a shadow that I just felt, that I wasn't alone in the entry plug. I shook myself awake and looked up at the display screen of my test plug. It said HARMONICS TEST COMPLETE. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and waited for the result.
The voices of the staff inside the control room were heard over the speaker in my entry plug. "Doctor Forrestal, we've got the sync results."
"Do tell," my father sternly commanded.
"For Pilot Vinson the rate is 35.75%. It's slightly below his performance average so far." I quietly smiled to myself, as 35% was lower than his claimed personal best.
"I see," replied my father. "Make sure he's at the right level of neural additive." I bit my lip and waited for my result to be reported.
"And for Pilot Forrestal…." There was a pause and then "55.98%! Her best score so far, sir!"
"Yes!" I said out loud.
"Very good, dear. I think that calls for something special tonight."
"Can we go to R&R?" I asked my father.
"I think I can manage to wake up someone to serve us. Go on and get changed and we'll see what we can do."
"Thanks, Dad!"
Once the test plug was raised out of the LCL and back onto the launch platform I rushed out of the hatch and bolted straight for Unit 03's test plug. I wasn't going to lose a second in rubbing this into the stupid boy. Vance just stood in front of his test plug hatch door, watching me as I marched towards him. As I rushed forward I called out to Vance, taunting him with my success in smacking his sync rate. "I got you! I got you good, you asshole! I…"
As I approached to just a few feet in front of him Vance didn't say anything at first, but instead reached out from behind him and thrusted something in front of my face. I was startled and couldn't finish what I was saying. Right in front of me Vance was now presenting me with a very unexpected response to my victory over him: a bouquet of a dozen red roses.
I was speechless as I saw the flowers, my mouth gaping wide open. With that still look on his face, the same expression he wore as he held me in his arms in the gym, he spoke to me softly. "Congratulations, Tiger."
"Um…I…" I was dumbfounded as I reached out and took the bouquet, gently touching the flowers to examine them. They were real, soft and full-bodied, and knowing that roses just don't grow in the desert or in many other places I knew it wasn't easy for him to just come by them either.
I admit it, I'm a sucker for flowers. I'm not entirely sure how he knew that either, but it was gracious of him just the same. For the first time since I met him, my own defenses went down a notch. "Thank you," I told him.
"You deserve it," he said softly. I tried to think of what else to say, but my face became warm and I'm pretty sure I was blushing nearly as bright red as the roses. Before I could get anything else out of my mouth I heard my dad calling me from behind. "Let's go, Erin."
"Be right there," I shouted over my shoulder. Vance just continued to look at me silently with that still expression on his face. This wasn't at all what I had either expected for hoped for, and now I wasn't quite sure what was really going on between me and him. "Um, I, uh…I gotta go get dinner."
"You go then," he said to me in a soft voice. "I'll catch you tomorrow."
"Yeah…tomorrow." I started to turn around to head towards where my dad was standing, and then said to Vance over my shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks again."
"Don't mention it."
I ran over to where my dad was, anxious to get away from the now very uncomfortable feelings I was having. "I'm here." My dad looked at me and then curiously at the bouquet I was still holding. "A present?" he enquired.
"Victory prize," I told him. He satisfied himself with a smug look on his face. "Good." We then walked together out of the testing pool room.
As the days went on our training with the Evangelions moved into more complex and challenging exercises. Where before we were getting the basics down of commanding the units, now we were up to fighting simulated targets in our EVAs.
Like the old simulator, most of the missions we did consisted of either offense or defense, but it was always EVA on EVA battles, as Vance and I would use our EVAs to defeat targets that resembled other Evangelions like ours. Usually the targets were holographic projections in the battle arena, but there were automated robot-like targets too and those shot back. Within those days we learned to get really good about maneuvering for combat, using our AT Fields and tactics to avoid being hit while trying to destroy an enemy that was moving as fast as we were. As Vance was good at his word and mostly avoided his earlier teasing, we started to work together better and that was great because it often took both of us working together to succeed in any of these battles.
On one particular night we were in our actual EVAs again in the underground training arena. My unit was armed with a Pallet Gun, basically a giant assault rifle that fired artillery shells like they were bullets, while Vance's Unit 03 was armed with a submachine pistol and a series of Progressive Knives
We worked out a tactic between the two of us, and that was I'd fire on any targets from a decent distance while Vance would try to come up on them in close range. As my EVA was quicker than his, I could dodge and avoid being hit better, while he would work on better ways to sneak up on targets and then jump them while they were trying to knock me out. It usually worked as we did the combat training that night Vance and I took on about four different holographic EVA units. After we got through defeating one spread of targets I saw another three, these were helicopter drones with cannons attached to them, start shooting at us. While I took down two of them with gunfire, he crouched and sprang up and sliced one completely in half, then drew his auto-pistol and blasted another one dead. We were in the last few evenings getting pretty good at knocking down the drones, enough where I wondered just how expensive these things were as we had killed bunches of them.
"Targets clear!" Vance shouted out. "Targets Clear!" said I as I scanned the horizon of the training area looking for anything else.
"All threats are cleared out," Vance reported. But that wasn't entirely true. On the display of my entry plug there flashed a warning: SYSTEM INTRUDED. Unit 03 also received the same kind of attack.
"Somethings trying to hack into the EVA's controls," Vance shouted. He was good at dealing with physical threats like other EVAs and robots. Invisible enemies like computer viruses, not so much.
Fortunately over the last few years I had become a good student of my father's computer techniques. I had come to discover that Dad was in fact one of the world's best computer crackers, something that those who don't understand the term refer to as "hackers." He was actually very, very skilled in gaining entry to nearly any kind of computer system imaginable and had been since he was my age. He had managed to also, through computer lessons that he himself wrote, help me to learn both about how to keep a computer from getting intruded in on by unwelcome threats like viruses and enemy crackers, as well as how to do it myself. When I saw that warning flash on the display of my entry plug, I was prepared.
"I got this," I told Vance on the audio feed as I motioned for the EVA plug control to give me a keyboard. In an instant a glowing red holographic keyboard was projected right in front of my throne and I promptly started keying in commands to call in defensive programs that would stop the digital intruder. My fingers flew on the keyboard, issuing command after command, and using programs already embedded in Unit 04's control system software.
"I'm slowing it down," I reported over the audio feed as I worked to contain the threat. It behaved like an active virus and seemed very intelligent, almost like a rogue AI. Even so I knew how to deal with it.
"Um, a little help here," Vance called out on the audio feed. "This thing is locking up the whole display."
"Just wait a minute," I replied back to him, trying to work hard enough to throw the virus back and then link to his EVA where I'd log in and drive out the virus attacking his EVA too.
After a series of counterattacks and a refresh of the security on the EVA's OS I managed to drive out the killer virus. Then I quickly walked over Unit 04 to where Vance's Unit 03 was standing motionless as the enemy virus chewed through his system. I moved the EVA closed enough to be able to shoot out a cable between us and then that allowed me a hard channel right into his EVA's OS, and then I went to work. Using a combination of pre-set programs installed on my own unit's software bank (of which we had hundreds of terabytes of storage space) plus skills I got from years of being schooled by Dad on how to deal with these things, I had EVA-03's OS cleared of the virus in about a minute.
"Threat's clear," I called out. On my display a video message window came up and Vance's face appeared on the holographic video feed. "Thanks a lot for that!" he told me, genuinely gratified.
"No worries," I said, smiling back at him.
"Anyway, do they really think that Angels got computer viruses? That somehow doesn't make any sense."
My dad's voice interrupted us on the audio feed. "The electronic grid is just like any other battlefield, Mister Vinson. There's no reason why an Angel might not have an ability to attack the EVA digitally."
Vance was still skeptical. "Seriously, sir?"
"I don't doubt it," my father assured him. "Besides, it's also possible your own opponents might not just be Angels." With that Dad left the audio channel to the two of us. I did wonder about that myself however, and what Dad meant. Did that mean we might not just be fighting Angels with EVA but other enemies too?
We ran one more combat simulation that night and I didn't make it back to the apartment until very late, it was after midnight when I finally reached the building. Exhausted, I went straight to my bedroom and took off everything I was wearing. I went to the bathroom and drew up hot water in the bathtub, and then plunged my naked self inside as soon as it was filled up.
One of things I really love when I'm tired is a hot bath and that night was no exception. I laid back in the tub, letting hot water cover me from my shoulders to my toes and just relaxed everything. After a few minutes the stillness of a quiet evening helped me to rest and let go of all of the stresses of the day and then I could finally think.
Things with EVA seemed to be going well, very well in fact. In just a few of weeks we went from barely being able to activate our units to being able to fight with them. I felt supremely confident when I piloted, able to get my unit to do pretty much anything I wanted her to. I had started to call Unit 04 "her" and I wasn't exactly sure why, but it just seemed appropriate. She seemed feminine, and maybe that was because Unit 04 didn't look just like a giant robot from cartoons and instead was thin and lanky, and moved really smoothly. Inside of the entry plug she had a sort of weird, "womanly" smell too although I really can't explain it further than that.
Also, my Vance problem had basically vanished after the harmonics test. Once all of the stupid playground behavior stopped I actually found out Vance was a pretty good fighter, really good in fact. While I could move fast and maneuver the EVA where she needed to be, Vance was very skilled at knocking out enemies and doing it quickly and violently. We worked really well as a team once we managed to stop fighting with each other. He was nice too, most of the time. There was still some teasing that he couldn't help but needle me with, and he still called me "Tiger" all of the time, but suddenly I didn't mind so much. He wasn't all that bad looking either.
The hot water was therapeutic and after a little while I found that every part of my body finally let go and went limp in the warmth. I leaned over the edge of bathtub and let my head rest on the edge, and I found myself slowly drifting to sleep.
My mind turned to the dream I kept having, the one that kept appearing ever since I started with EVA, the dream about the cabin in the mountains. The dreams all seemed like some version of the same thing, daytime or nighttime I imagined living in a cabin on a mountain at the edge of the woods. There was an older man living with this boy who I couldn't quite see in detail, and he did just really mundane things like household chores, or chop wood in the back yard, or at night read by the fireplace or did puzzle-like things on tables (and he seemed to really like puzzles). I thought I heard voices but again it was all muffled, all I knew is that there were two of them and every day seemed much like another. I had thought the whole thing strange but then again it felt like such a nice, peaceful life. If I ever managed to grow up and leave Second Branch that seemed like a wonderful way to live and not in a hot desert where I was now.
Suddenly I felt a rush of water and I drew a deep breath in panic. Forcing my head out of the bathwater I realized that I nearly drowned inside, that's how relaxed I had become from the dream. I took a few deep breaths to get myself back to normal and made a mental note to try and not fall asleep again in the tub, as there wasn't anyone else here to pull me out. Still despite nearly drowning myself my fantasy about the cabin was my escape from reality, and I began to wonder often about my boy in the mountains.
Before I wrote Blue Rose I had plotted out a story that took place at the NERV-2 base in Nevada, entitled "Second Branch." This was basically a side-story that took place in parallel with the first few episodes of the original EVA TV series. I ended up not using it, mostly as it didn't have nearly as much action as I wanted to given that all of the Angels were heading to Tokyo-3 and not Nevada. However two of the pilot characters in that story later developed into Erin Forrestal and Vance Vinson. Much of what you're reading here originally came from that pilot story that was sketched out something like ten years ago.